The Seals score late in the first and get on the board first.
After that, nothing happens. Well, not nothing. But no goals get scored during the second. Charlie nearly gets murdered right in front of him, Blake tries to murder a Seal in retaliation and doesn’t even see who the hell he’s grabbing. During the playoffs that sort of shit is legal. They eventually get separated by the refs.
“You okay?” Blake asks.
Charlie nods and skates to the bench, where one of their trainers is already waiting for him with a towel to wipe away the blood on Charlie’s face.
Things don’t get any less rough after that. Blake ends up with a Seal in his net, the puck’s in there somewhere, too, but it’s ruled no goal because the net was off before the puck went in.
They go into the second intermission with the score unchanged. Coach Fitzgerald comes into the room, looks around, and says, “Someone needs to score a goal. I don’t care which one of you does it.”
Blake doesn’t care either. Nobody cares who does it.
It’s Paulie who comes to their rescue halfway through the third, ties up the game for them and all they need after that is one goal.
Charlie is the one who gets credit for it, but it’s not a pretty goal. The puck bounces off at least three people, including the Seals’ goalie, before it falls into the net. Blake has his eyes on the board, watching the replay. There’s not a single goalie in the world who would have managed that save. It’s an unlucky bounce, but they’ll take it.
The Seals pull their goalie, and Paulie gets the empty netter, and they still have thirty-two seconds on the clock, but it’s starting to sink in now, that they’re close, that the Cup is in the building and that they’ll hold it in their hands.
Thirty-two seconds.
They run down faster than Blake would have imagined.
He doesn’t even remember hearing the final horn. It’s like when they won the Eastern Conference Finals, except he’s pretty sure that Charlie is actually crying when he hugs him this time. He’s pretty sure that Kells is crying, too. Blake hugs every guy he can get to, but mostly he wants to find Mattie.
He’s at the very outside of their large and sweaty huddle, but the boys let him through and Mattie puts a baseball hat on Blake that says that they’re Stanley Cup Champions. He hugs Mattie until Mattie tells him that he needs to let go, because the Seals are waiting for handshakes.
There are a bunch of Knights fans down by the glass now and when they’re done shaking hands, Blake skates over to them to throw himself against the glass. Quickly, because then the Cup is coming out and Kells is skating over to take it from Joe Watson. It goes from Kells to Mattie, from Mattie to Paulie, from Paulie to Juice, and then Juice is skating over to Blake.
He takes it for a spin and then hands it over to Charlie, because he was the one who scored the game winner.
They’ve let everyone’s families on the ice now, too, and Blake finds Evan with Mattie’s family and Evan pulls him into a crushing hug. Neither of them says that they wish their grandma was here, that they wish their parents could see this. All Evan says in the end is, “I won’t fucking touch it.”
Blake laughs, barely has time to hug Mattie’s kids before he’s pulled away for an interview. That’s how his night is going. Photos, interviews, more photos, then the locker room, and the Cup, champagne getting poured everywhere.
Evan told him he wouldn’t come out to celebrate with them, because he’s insanely jealous and he has to be on a flight to Hartford at nine the next morning because he’s helping out at a hockey camp back home.
The team takes the party to a club and Blake wonders how he’s supposed to remember winning the Cup when he’s handed drink after drink. He gets talked into dancing and he dances and he hugs everyone who’s close enough to hug and then someone hands him another drink, and after that he needs to sit down. He eventually escapes to the bathroom, where the music is nothing more than a dull throb and he has a second to breathe. It smells terrible. He’s overcome with a strange sense of déjà vu, but doesn’t pause to figure out why.
He hides in a stall and gets his phone out of his pocket, his brain hurting from seeing all the missed calls and texts, and finds Elliot’s number. It’s early morning in Toronto, not that Blake realizes that when he hits call.
Elliot picks up, voice sleepy when he says, “Hey, Stanley Cup champion Blake Samuels.”
“That’s what you’ve saved in your phone?”
“Not yet, but I’ll take care of that in a couple of hours when I’m actually awake.”
“Sorry,” Blake says.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not,” Blake confirms. “I miss you.”
“Blake.”
“I do.”
“I know. But you’re only telling me that because you’re drunk.”
“Still true.”
Elliot sighs. “I miss you, too.”
“When are you coming back to New York?”
“I don’t know. I… I’m doing the same camp in Toronto that I always do.”
“But it’s not starting yet.
“No, not yet.”
“So when are you coming back to New York?”
“Can we talk about this when you’re not drunk? Because you just won the Cup. And this is… I’m not even awake.”
“Okay,” Blake says, because Elliot has a point and it is okay. “I miss you,” he adds, to make sure Elliot understood him
